Beauty & Chaos
by JessicaJ
Summary: As a child, she firmly believed that no harm could come to her from any witch or ghoul that existed solely within the pages of her story books. As a woman, she discovers the hard way that there is always truth to be found in the old tales.
1. Prologue

I've not posted anything for a long time, mainly due to being very busy, but also lacking inspiration. I've had this knocking around for a while, and hope to get it moving based on some feedback.

-0-

**Prologue**

_O, fair maiden, why do you hate me so, for taking you from your peasant home? Have I not provided you with all you could desire? How else must I make you love me? Upon a whim I take possession of sunlight, moon dust and the very stars that fall from the sky – but you, and your love have no price._

_-0-_

The pages of her storybooks were well-thumbed; signs of a much-loved, memorised tome belonging to a child now full grown. In her little village nestled in the foothills of the Nibel mountains, people told a lot of stories to fill the empty days and nights; tales, fables, anecdotes—allegorical, mostly; a horror-tinged tale to hasten the children to their beds, or to deter them from wandering alone in the woods or too far from the sight of their mothers.

Her grandmother's stories were always fantastical and far-fetched, and she pertained to find no amusement or wisdom from them, obstinate a child as she was that no harm could come to her from any witch of ghoul that existed solely within the pages of her story books. Her grandfather would warn her that there was always truth to be found in the old tales.

"Especially the old ones, Young Tifa," He chastised her one day, when she had displayed an avid stubbornness. "They don't last so long without good reason. There's got to be some explanation for those wood choppers who wandered too far into the Northern Forests, and never came back…"

This was the sad tale of a handsome but selfish Prince who had once loved a beautiful maiden a long time ago. Her hair was the colour of gold, her skin as pale as the morning. The prince fell in love with her when she strayed near his castle, picking flowers and singing sweet mountain songs. Knowing no other way to make her his own, he stole her away into the night.

A maiden she was, but also an enchantress of terrible power. For his greed, his selfishness and his malice, she cursed him; never again would a woman look upon him without terrible fear, for she bound him to the body of a monster for all of eternity.

His rage was great yet his struggle fruitless. His castle and all those within it were cursed with him, bound to serve him for all of time.

And who could not comprehend his rage?—Never again would he love and be able to be loved in return.

For who could learn to love a beast?


	2. A Quiet Village

'_Selfish prince, you took me, yet I cannot be owned nor held in any prison you can create. You however, must remain in the prison of the body of a monster; For that is what you are, and always will be, until you shall teach another to love you as you are. _

_Look to the full moon, for only then shall you know all that you once were.'_

_-The Enchantress, the Tale of the Selfish Prince_

Chapter 1: A Quiet Village

She wandered through the village just as the sun was peaking over the mountains. The grass was still dewy, wetting the hem of her dress as she crossed the field, a bucket in each hand. The buttercups and daises were still closed, yet to be awakened by the sun.

Humming as she walked, she made her way to the cowsheds, calling a greeting to Mabel and Greta, her father's two cows.

"I know, I know. I am early today," She conceded over their apparent grumbling, ushering them into the milking shed. "Sorry—got some errands to run in the forest, while Dad is feeling sick."

She thought of him at home, coughing and spluttering. She had to threaten him with camphorated oil to keep him bed bound for the day, promising to perform all his errands for him, and bring him breakfast.

That had seemed to satisfy him for the moment, she thought, chuckling as she set herself upon her stool. Swiftly braiding her waist-length brown hair out of her way, she set to work.

-0-

Her father's sickness worsened. She feared for his life so much that she did not leave his bed side day and night for a week, and her younger sister had to take care of her usual chores. With her mother gone, taken by the flux years before, and her father sick, she was head of the family now. She had to be strong.

She had to… he had to live! Her sister was too small to remember their mother, but the loss of their father would sap the rose from her cheeks and steal her smiles and laughter for the summers to come.

To ease her worries, she told her father stories. Most days he rarely stirred from his fever-induced sleep, though his mumbling and tossing seemed to still at the sound of her voice. She told him of the trolls in the mountains that jealously guarded caves heaving with the gold of stolen treasure; of lions that bore the wings of eagles and could speak, and spout flame from their jaws. She told him the story of the white stag, that prowled the forest- he who hunted it could cut out its heart and grant any one wish he desired above all else.

It saddened her that her sister, who was once so fond of listening to the fables and tales that their grandparents had told them, seemed angered by them. She would fold her arms in her bed at night, refusing to have Tifa tell her any more stories. They were all lies, she cried, knocking the book from Tifa's weary hands. She would not be lied to anymore.

So much like herself, she thought, yet so young… She only wished she had something left to believe in.

-0-

In her recent trips to the village, she had been subject to some uncomfortable scrutiny.

There were new faces in town, hunters they said, who were looking to settle here. Generally it took a while for the village to warm to outsiders, and she could not blame them. Who would choose to settle here, so far away from anywhere? Nothing exciting ever happened, unless it was a birth or a death or a marriage. It was the latter subject that reared it's head.

One of the men who were new in town, the hunter Gaston, had greeted her once day, offering to help her carry a sack of potatoes she was lugging home from the markets. Grateful for any assistance, though still wary that she knew nothing of this stranger, she politely and coolly accepted his offer for help, asking him to set it down a short distance from her home. She didn't quite feel comfortable letting him know exactly which house was hers, yet she didn't doubt he could find out if he tried. It was a very small town after all.

He tried to delay her, offered to carry the sack inside for her, though she refused his assistance.

Later that day, he had been asking after her name in the town Tavern, for she had not given it, asking if she were promised to another, if she were a maid and the like. She felt uneasy by these rumours.

She was old enough to marry, though no men in the village, least of all this stranger, captivated her in the slightest. He was tall, and handsome, sure, but there was just _something_ that she couldn't trust. His eyes were black, his hands large enough to surround her waist and then some, and his manner was all too… manufactured.

That night, dressed in her long white nightgown and by the light of single candle, she tugged her favourite tome free of the bookshelf and huddled in the sphere of the flame to re-read her favourite tales. Fingers traced illustrations she had mapped to memory, of beautiful princesses with long golden hair, and regal princes astride noble steeds, brandishing gleaming swords at vile creatures.

There were no fairy tale endings, she knew, wiping away a stray tear. She would no doubt live and die in this village, as her mother had before her, and her mother before her.

-0-

Her father's health peaked and troughed. In the troughs, he could barely raise his arms to feed himself, though in the peaks he would visit the tavern, much to her dissatisfaction. He deserved a drink, he would tell her, ruffling her hair, as if she were still a small girl underfoot.

She would retort that Mother had let him get away with too much, and now she and her sister were paying the price. He wouldn't like that, but he still went to tavern regardless, returning home very late into the night.

On one such evening, he returned earlier than she had anticipated. She set aside her sewing; she had been repairing her sister's favourite bonnet in time for summer. "You are home earlier that I expected," She said despondently, rising to assist her father to the armchair. Once he was settled, she busied herself with the fire.

Tonight she felt angrier than usual with him. They were becoming steadily poorer, surviving only on the money they made selling cow's milk and cheeses that Tifa and her sister had gotten rather skilled at making using goat's milk. Their chickens yielded some eggs, though of late a fox had taken two of their six. Her father spent what little money she had left aside on ale, and goodness knows what else, in the tavern.

"Tifa, do come and sit by me. I need to speak with you about something important."

She raised her head at this, frowning, though she acceded, seating herself upon the small stool at the side of his armchair. She would sit there as a girl, listening to her mother read.

Her father reached out to touch her cheek gently, a soft smile upon his lips. No doubt he was recalling the same memory. "I met with a gentleman in the tavern this evening- a monsieur Gaston- Big handsome fella- do you know him?"

Her frown did not lessen. "Yes, I know of him and his party- the hunters from out of town."

"That's right. I was speaking with him for some time- he is quite taken with you, you know?"

"With me?" Her father's expression told her he had expected a more agreeable reaction. She did not blush or smile. Rather her frown deepened and her heart quickened its pace in her chest.

"Do not look so frightened child! You have done nothing wrong- he was merely enquiring if you were still a maiden, and if you were looking for a husband. He is looking to settle here in town – looking to build a lodge a little way up the mountain trail. He could be a good match for you."

"I don't know what to say…" Her fingers fluttered near her throat. "I barely know him."

"Nonsense- you have enough time to get to know him, while you are so young! I have told him I will consider his offer carefully and—"

"_You_ told him?!" She bolted to her feet, fists curled tightly at her side. "What offer did he make? Am I some cattle that you are taking to market, father?!"

"Hush child-"

"I'm no child, father! I am a grown woman, and I will make my own choice-"

"Don't you _dare _raise your voice to me, young lady!" Her father wobbled to his feet also, outstretching her. "Do you think marriage is about _choice_? What about your sister- what about me?"

"What's going on?" Tifa closed her mouth, turning her head sharply to register her younger sister in the doorway, clutching the edge of her nightdress worriedly. "Why are you and Papa shouting?"

Tifa shot her father a glance, as if to say, _this isn't the end of this matter_ before crossing the room towards the stairwell, where Rosa lingered. "Come now – father and I were disagreeing about something to do with the farm- weren't we Papa?" She shot a glare over her shoulder, and he nodded after a moment.

"You should both go to bed," He muttered, slumping back into his armchair. "I need to sit and think for a while more."

Happy to relieve herself of the unpleasantness of the situation, she gripped Rosa's hand and led her up to bed.

"You weren't really arguing about that… were you?" Rosa's eyes were wide and full of unshed tears, the covers pulled up to her chin. Tifa sighed, halfway towards leaning to blow out the candle. Instead the flame flickered in the wake of her expired breath.

"No, Rosa. Papa… Papa wants me to get married." Privately she wondered what had been promised, what words they had exchanged to make her father trust a stranger so readily?

"Well, that's good news, isn't it?"

"I… I don't know." She drew her shawl tightly about her shoulders, trapping out an unseen chill. "I don't want to get married. Not to just anyone, at least… I want…" She thought about the princes and the princesses in their finery, within the ink drawings of her storybook; there would be nothing like that for her, a peasant from a mountain village.

She sighed heavily, smoothing her thumb over her sister's cheek. "I had hoped that things would be different, I suppose. But maybe… Maybe they just can't be the way I want them to be." Perhaps her father was doing as a dying man would- trying to sort his affairs and marry off his eldest daughter, setting up provisions for her future. A future she had no hand in.

-0-

A week or so passed, and her father's health deteriorated further. A day arrived when she could no longer put off doing the chores. The house needed firewood; she needed to gather mushrooms from the forest while the season was right, and before the snows came; there were also herbs that grew down by the river that would ease her father's pain.

She gathered her cloak, her hunting bow (it would be foolish to pass up the chance to catch some game, if the opportunity arose), and her basket, sweeping out of the house a little before noon. She had checked upon her father before leaving—he was still, and sleeping peacefully.

The air was heavy with moisture; the village was very high up in the mountains, and sometimes sat among the very clouds themselves. This was one such day. Her cloak and her hair quickly became dampened.

She took the forest path down into the valley, wading through the sea of ferns, swollen and greedily advancing due to a long season of wet weather. Within a couple of hours her basket was overflowing with mushrooms and berries, though before she could turn home she wanted to try to find some elderwort, a plant that grew near the river. Brewed with willow bark this tea would help to ease her father's pain.

Her boots caked with mud, she finally slid into the bottom of the valley. The recent rainfall had swollen the river, and it flowed swiftly past. Still so high in the mountains, at its widest found she could still jump over it, if she took a run up.

It while she scrambled on her hands and knees among the shrubs and river plants, searching for Elderwort, when something moving over on the far bank caught her eyes.

She release an audible gasp, causing the creature to raise its' head, ruby eyes boring into hers. An age seemed to pass in which they stared at one another.

A white stag!

Her lips parted- but surely it could not be real! She dared not move, her fingers coming to life, and twitching. Her bow was strung across her shoulders; though reaching for it would surely send the creature running…

The forest pulsed and hummed around her; a woodpecker tapped out his song against a faraway pine, the echoes like whispers in the gloom; a tawny owl hooted, and bird wings fluttered and flapped in the branches up in the canopy.

Still frozen, her grandfather's voice whispered in her mind. _'Remember Tifa, he who hunts and catches the white stag and cuts out its heart will be granted one wish.'_

It had to be a fool's errand… but at the very least game was always a welcome bounty from a journey into the forest.

It was now or never.

She was half-way through drawing her bow when the creature bolted. She was ready for him, taking a leap of faith across the river and only stumbling a little as she nocked an arrow in place, sprinting in pursuit through the forest.

She left the path long behind, diving through the buffeting ferns and leaping over fallen pines. Always the stag's white tail flashed tantalisingly up ahead, disappearing beyond a copse of trees on a ridge. She gave chase still, breath coming in puffs and wheezes, low spiny branches whipping at arms and face and rabbit holes threatening to trip her or worse…

Still she battled on, always with him in her sights…

Suddenly she burst out from the thick trees into a glistening meadow. The creature stalled up ahead, flanks steaming from the exertion of the hunt, poised and ready to spring away should she make her next move.

Before she could catch her breath he was off again, and she hauled herself forwards, closing just enough distance to steel herself, squint along her arm and let one arrow loose and arching through the air . It found its home in the hide of the stag. It screamed, birds in the near radius taking flight at the animals' anguished cry.

Still it fled, limping and impeded by the embedded missile. She gave chase again, knowing that the creature must slow soon, the metal head of her arrow lodged deep within its flesh chafing with each step…

Still it ran, and still she followed, until she knew no more the terrain they crossed. The forest ceased, giving way to rolling, untilled pastures and finally she came to a great iron gate that must mark the beginning of some great estate. The walls either side were in ruin, and the gate itself was rusted open.

Fresh blood on the overgrown path told her that her quarry had come this way; then she must follow, regardless of the impending twilight, and, if the rumble overhead was any indication, the impending storm. Perhaps she would find shelter here for the night and make her journey back tomorrow; once she had found her stag and had her wish granted, she would need not rush home with the Elderwort. All would be well again.


	3. Wishes of the Heart

'_Are you entertained by my suffering; by the suffering of my servants? By what actions did they deserve this fate?' – The Beast Prince._

'_Their suffering is your suffering. It carves your path as a river cuts through rock; slowly, and steadily, but inevitably. You must learn to feel, before another can see you as anything but the monster you appear to be' – the Enchantress._

-0-

3. Wishes of the Heart

The white stag had climbed the great stone steps leading into a ruined entrance hall. Lightning flared and raged beyond the shattered stain glass windows, casting a spectrum of fractals against the pale flank of the creature. Its nostrils flared violently, blood oozing from the wound in its flank. The creature knew it had reached a dead-end.

She drew her bowstring tight and loosed a final arrow through the eye of the stag.

It landed on its side halfway up the stone stairs, its blood reddening the wet stone, emitting low grunts of pain that barely registered over the _pitter-patter_ of raindrops without. The ground trembled with the crack of thunder.

She must end its suffering, for the bravery it had shown. With a soft sigh she drew her dagger from her boot, approaching the magnificent beast slowly. She had killed creatures before, but this…

She knelt beside it, placing her palm flat on its heaving flank. Its heart throbbed beneath the muscle. Holding her breath, she dragged the dagger along the throat of the stag, hot blood gushing forth and staining her palms. Its breathing shuddered to a stop, and it lay still and silent.

She glanced about her once again. What was this place? The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, her spine shuddering with a violent shiver. She felt as though she were being watched, by the faces in what remained of the elaborate stained glass prospects.

She did not like this place.

She cursed to herself. There was no way she would be able to haul this magnificent and powerful creature back to the village. There was something unnerving about this place, and she wanted to get the stag heart and run for her life.

With thunder clapping overhead and the rain lashing against her body, her muscles screaming for mercy, she managed to haul the stag by a length of rope she had tied about its ankles up the final steps and into the relative shelter of the ruined hall.

Once she reached the cover of the canopy, she set to work with her knife, soon elbow deep in still-warm entrails. She snapped her head up at the next boom of thunder, gasping aloud at the sudden appearance of a figure, silhouetted against a glass window, holding aloft a gleaming lantern. She could see no features beneath the hood they wore.

Her heart racing now, she finally cut free the organ she was looking for – the stag heart. It was larger than her clutched fist, and gleamed, slick with blood. She would take it home to show Rosa – the child would never believe the stag had been white, without proof though, so Tifa cut free one of its silky white fur ears before fleeing out of the hall and down the stone steps, finally breaching the perimeter and darting beneath the canopy of the forest. She looked back once, to find the watcher still stood stationary by the gate, he – for his form was too large to be that of a woman- did not make to follow her.

-0-

She found her trail through the forest and followed it back for some time, barely able to see now that evenfall was so close. She tripped several times on upturned roots and stones that littered her path. As she neared the village and familiar terrain at last she spotted a familiar form between the trees, illuminated by a torch held aloft and calling her name. She thought back to the figure in the ruins – who lived there? Had they been disturbed by her intrusion into their forsaken hall?

"Gaston? What are you doing out here?"

"I've been searching for you everywhere!" He cried, rushing towards her. "Your father asked me to come and search for you – you have been gone for hours."

"You needn't have worried so much," She raised the dead heart to her face, turning it this way and that. "I was out hunting."

"What in god's name is that?!"

"It's a heart," She smiled, admiring the way it glistened, the thick muscle now a deep purple shade. "I cut it from a white stag in the forest." She produced the white velvet-soft ear as proof of her claim.

His eyes widened. A seasoned hunter such as Gaston would know the significance of a white stag heart. Hunters were a superstitious lot, at best. "_You _killed a white stag?"

"Its blood stains my arrows and my knife," She raised her chin defiantly. "I am not just some useless maiden who wiles away the hours sewing and cooking."

"I can see that…" He did not take his eyes from the heart clutched in her hands. "What do you mean to do with it? Would you now wish for wealth, and long-life?"

She gazed upon it once more. What did she want? She wanted adventure in the great wide-world, somewhere, worthy of a tale in storybook in centuries to come. But her father was sick, and her sister needed taking care of. She had duty to her family, first. "I must cure my father's sickness."

His expression was almost as if he considered such a wish a waste, but he knew as well as she that it was her knife that had cut the heart free. The magic was hers, and hers alone.

"I should get back to my father." She told him. "I would be grateful of an escort to town."

They walked in silence together, their shadows dancing and jumping in the flickering torchlight, as though even her outline were trying to escape his proximity.

"Tifa… Gaston!" one of Gaston's hunter companions was running toward them, arms waving in distress. His expression was panicked, worried, and for a moment she forget her dislike for him. He struggled to get back his breath. "Your home… it's…. It's burning."

She did not tarry to see if Gaston made to follow her, plunging into the night and away from Gaston's torch light, boots pounded on the earth as she sprinted towards the village. She didn't want to believe his words even as she could taste the ash in her mouth. She stopped running when the heat from the flames repelled her.

Around her, villagers were scurrying like ants carrying buckets and various vessels filled with water, trying to dowse the fire, to stop it from spreading. They jostled her, perhaps not even recognising her, as they struggled with battle the fire. The roar of the fire deafened her, blazing beneath the rhythm of her pounding heart.

"Tifa. They… they didn't make it out alive…" someone said needlessly. She could see their feet protruding from beneath heavy cloth sheets, blackened and burned. Dead.

She squeezed the heart she clutched in her fist, cold blood welling up from her fist and dripping at her feet. Wishing the dead back to life was futile, she knew. What did she have left to wish for?

Strong hands gripped at her shoulders, and she needn't have looked to know whom they belonged to. "TIfa… I'm so sorry for your loss. You must come to tavern, and get cleaned up. We can... we can bury them in the morning."

"No." She jerked free of his hold. "There is something I must do." She raised the heart before her, in her slickened palm, and wished with all her might that a path be presented to her, to lead her away from this place, and this life. She wished for a chance to escape.

Then she tossed the heart into the flames of her burning home.

-0-

She battled into the night with a few of the villagers who had been close to the family, dowsing the final angry flames and batting out the embers. All that remained was a skeleton of her former home- scorched bones jutting out of the earth, scraps of flesh that were once walls clinging on desperately. With the coming of dawn came the rains again, mocking their efforts as the final embers were snuffed out by the damp. She stood in the murky morning light, encrusted with blood and soot, her hair a wild, sodden and tangled mess.

Her kindly neighbours implored her to come inside their home. To eat some, and take a bath they said. Get into some warm and dry clothing. She refused all of their kind offers.

Her feet took her to the graveyard, and as the sun rose over a watery world, she set to digging open her family grave. Her mother's bones would be joined by that of her husband and her youngest daughter. The steel of her spade hit wood; she knew she had reached her mother's casket. She would not be alone anymore.

Next, she made a visit to her neighbours. She left not freshly washed and clothed nor fed, but with gold coins in her hand. She had sold the cows, and what chickens remained.

The coins did not have chance to warm in her palm before she gave them to the undertaker. For the caskets and the headstone marking, she told him. Her sister loved pink, though none of her dresses had survived the fire. The Undertaker's wife promised her she would find a suitable dress to bury her in.

One silver coin remained. She had enough to buy some rough spun cloth and some cotton from the tailors, and was loaned some thread, needles and shears. With the coppers remaining she paid for a room in the inn, pointedly asking for a room separate from Gaston's hunting party. There, she locked herself away and cut herself a new rough outfit of a simple grey dress and a heavy travelling cloak, stitching for several hours before her eyes grew tired.

She asked the maid to draw her a bath, and finally she scrubbed herself clean of soot and blood and dirt until the water turned dark.

She washed out her undergarments and her shirts, though she did not light a fire to aid their drying. She feared the scent of burning wood.

As the light began to fail, she completed the stitching of her thick green travelling cloak and a simple grey cotton skirt, adding buttons where necessary.

With aching limbs and tired eyes she clambered naked amongst the sheets and furs and tumbled into a depthless slumber, dreaming of the tall-hooded figure in the ruins. He beckoned to her from the darkness.

-0-


	4. The Hunter and the Hunted

_The raw power of the full moon shall reveal all that once was; the form that you once inhabited shall return to you, and serve to remind you of the gravity of your punishment._

_It will show all that you can become again._

4. The Hunter and the Hunted

A day and a night passed in a blur of shape and colour. The inn was filled with sounds of merriment not one night after the fire had devastated her family; bitterness filling her mouth and fury clenching her fists. How could she remain here, surrounded by merry-making and joy when all that remained in her life was darkness and pain?

She does not wish to leave her room and brave the company of the others who inhabited the tavern. Gaston would no doubt be on hand to dole out some comfort, a kind she did not want to invite from him, nor anyone for that matter.

She remained within, sharpening her dagger, re-fletching her arrows and sewing a lining into her cloak; Readying herself to flee from unseen shadows, to wander onto unfamiliar ground.

-0-

Her dreaming that night was vivid and dark.

She dreamed of her village in the dead of night, the houses silver in the light of the near-full moon. A lone figure walks, hooded and cloaked, holding aloft a dim lantern. The figure approached the inn, standing before a window and peering within, features indistinguishable beneath the shadow of the hood. The view shifts, and now she sees what the figure sees – a room within the inn, no fire burning in the hearth. A figure tosses and turns within a bed. The figure is familiar, though only as it turns once more does she recognise her own face.

She bolts awake, lung paralysed with terror as she looks with wide eyes to the window, terrified of what she might find there.

There is no figure, and she takes a slow, deep breath.

-0-

She does not sleep again, and the dawn comes slowly. Her muscles are aching and tense from leaning against the stiff headboard throughout the early hours, battling her irrational fear of returning to sleep, and finding the hooded figure once more.

Her vision is limited to this small space that was her room, her future stretching no further than a final night in the inn that her last coppers had purchased. From there on in, the pages of her sad tale were blank; unwritten.

As the weak light of dawn brought some relief to her unrest, she ventured out to break her fast on some rather thick porridge, glad that no others stirred at the inn to disturb her solitude. The maids had drawn her a bath in her room in a thick copper tub, the scalding water bringing some relief to her burdened body.

She had not allowed them to light a fire in the hearth.

-0-

She had managed to gather a small posy of wildflowers for Rosa from the surrounding woodland. At the burial, she rested them against the humble carved headstone that marked where a family now lay in rest. Her footprints in the freshly turned earth seemed to tell of a wish to be with them once more; the last of her blood, six feet above them and breathing.

"Your father was a good man."

"What did you know about my father." She spat, her tone filled with such finality as would discourage any further response. She did not need to look to know it was Gaston, his hulking shadow dwarfing hers as it fell upon the headstone.

"He was a smart man- a caring man. He only wanted the best for his daughters."

"Gaston."

"Tifa, it was your father's wish, that we marry. Why should we not marry, especially now?" He question was leering, gloating almost. She had nowhere to go and he knew that very well. Convenient for his cause, yet she couldn't bring herself to follow that line of thought.

"You do not know me! How can you possibly wish to marry me?" She whirled around, cheeks flushed with anger. "My father is dead, and my existence on this earth was not solely to obey his wishes."

He seems taken aback for a moment, though he recovers swiftly. "I can see how you might need some time to come to terms with your loss, but truly you must consider my offer. I am offering you the chance of a new life; Of a home. Who else in this town will be able to give you that?"

True, he might have been one of very few eligible males for marriage in her village. Young men and women had in previous generations gone to other villages to find a suitable partner. Although she had attended barn dances and markets in villages for miles around- shared a few kisses in secret by the cow sheds in her youth- Never had she been inclined to think any of her brief interactions with those of the other sex were enough to tempt her towards marriage.

She looked upon Gaston, absorbing him as meeting him for the first time. He was tall; outstretching her by a whole head and shoulders, with dark softly curling hair that he tied back at the nape of his neck. He couldn't have been older that three and twenty, yet his hunting prowess had been established in his few short weeks in town already, if the many birds that hung from the rafters of the inn was anything to go by.

His biceps, shoulders and thighs were powerful and large, though he chose a tighter fit for the clothing he wore to exhibit them better. Cool blue eyes shone brightly from beneath heavy set brows and dark lashes. He was handsome, yes, with a strong chin and chiselled features.

Her heart was a cold and dead organ within her chest, and it did not stir one bit at the sight of him.

She felt nothing.

He steps in, a little closer to her, reaching with a gloved hand to touch her shoulder. "I wish to marry you, because you are the most beautiful girl in town. You're not like the other girls I've met before… There's something different about you… an energy, if you will."

She suspected her resistance to him since their meeting had only sparked the curiosity of the hunter within him. As prey, why did she not fear him? As a female, why was she not attracted to him? He was pulled by a need to understand this lack of fear, this absence of desire. She was a wild creature to tame, a challenge to overcome. A stubborn female that needed breaking in, and bending to his will and whim.

"Gaston, I cannot accept your offer, such as it is. I am leaving town today."

A flicker of anger rippled his brow. "You're leaving?! Tifa, I beg you to reconsider—"

"I have considered enough. I am leaving town today and you shall not see me again. I wish you all the best in your search for happiness, if indeed that is what you seek. I cannot give it to you."

She strides away as fast as her legs can take her without breaking into a run, wondering if she would regret turning her back toward the beast.

-0-


	5. Chaos

5. Chaos

The first few miles on the path that leads away from Nibel, descending into the valley and the forest are the longest few miles she has ever walked before. She is leaving behind everything she had ever known. For the first time since the fire, she allowed herself to cry. She could barely even see where she was walking, stumbling on upturned roots and tree debris. She wiped her face upon her sleeve and carried on.

She carried with her the only earthly possessions she had aside from the clothes on her back – her bow, her arrows, and her knife. Other than that she travelled light, without hopes, dreams or expectations. She didn't have a plan. She didn't know where she was going, or what she would do when she reached a place that might tempt her to remain. She had no apparent desires that propelled her in any one direction, though had she had more wit about her she would have noticed she was in fact retracing the steps of the chase for the white stag heart.

She barely recognised the meadow, only raising her head when she fell in the shadow of the gate.

She knew this place… she had fled from here, with the still-warm stag heart clutched in her fist; She had revisited this place in her dreams. She touched her finger tips to the weathered, ancient stone, looking at the ruins of the once great manor. She could hardly imagine what it would have been like, all those years ago, standing tall and grand, thriving with activity.

She circumnavigates the walls, surveying the ruins with renewed interest. Surely no one could live here, with it in the state it was in? Still, she had seen the hooded man very clearly with her own eyes as she had fled from a ruined entrance hall.

In spite of any misgivings, she lifted her skirts and crossed a section of the wall that had long since fallen into disrepair, striding towards a patch of vegetation she could make out up ahead.

The husks of grape vines withered in perfectly ordered rows, dead trees stood inanimate in the graveyard orchards. Once carefully laid paving was now littered with burgeoning twisted roots and weeds.

In a desolate courtyard, a lone figure stands; He is tall, short blond hair, sharp chiselled features. He smiled warmly upon seeing her. She is almost sure it is the cloaked man and though he is a stranger she does not fear him. The courtyard is arranged symmetrically around a large oval pool, with a central vacant plinth; it is filled with stagnant rain water covered with a thin film of scum.

"You have returned." He states, arms folded across his chest. He wears all black, his coat bearing shining brass buttons. He wears the cloak, the hood down. "You had a purpose then. Now you do not. In such a short space of time, something has changed you." He leans against the stone as still as if he were part of it, not flesh and bone.

She folds her hands and sighs. "I have nowhere to go. I came here because I was curious about the hooded figure I saw that night."

"So you came here, of all the places you could go; this place, an over grown memorial stone besmirching this fine landscape; left here to remind those who do not even remember what ill fate befell its previous occupants."

She frowns gently, peering up at him from beneath her hood. "I had never seen this place until the other day. And I am almost certain I have never heard of a castle being here before."

"It chose to reveal itself to you. In doing so, it awakened me."

She frowns, not pleased by his deception. "Who are you, exactly?"

"My name is Lumiere and I am the watchman here, for all intents and purposes. Indeed, that very spot there, in the centre of that pool, had been my vigil for a thousand years; until a white stag lead you here, not four nights hence."

She turned back towards the fountain and indeed there was a mark there, as if some shape had protected that small space of stone from the wind and rain for many, many years.

Yet she cannot fully believe his words – a thousand years? Impossible.

"Lumiere, my name is Tifa." They shook hands; his palm was as cool and as smooth as marble.

They walked together for a time, and he showed her the estate such as it was. He pointed out lumps of stone and told her there used to be ballrooms, a library, an observatory; as many rooms with as many purposed as one could want or think of.

She questions him incessantly, surprised at the manner in which he patiently answers her. "And who lived here? Is it only you that remains?"

"There were many of us once," He falters. "One of us in particular… he sleeps. He was punished severely for his sins. And slumber is his only escape."

Hi lips seal tightly and she asks no more. The air suddenly feels a little cooler.

-0-

They gather wood together and build a fire in the courtyard, where there is an offering of shelter from the wind. They collect rabbits from the snares that he had set the day before, and prepare for a small feast as the darkness begins to set in.

"What will you do now, Tifa?" He asks, after then had dined on roasted rabbit and some berries. She considers his question, her stomach full and content.

For all his eccentricities, she feels no need to fear this man. He is calm and gentle in temperament, gives her no sense of mistrust, unlike some people she knew. She cast a thought back to Gaston and wondered if some other young thing at their village was next on his list. The number of eligible females was, however, rather short. How long until he moved on, also?

Nibel would become a ghost town soon enough.

They sat in a fairly relaxed arrangement by their campfire, beneath the shelter of the roof awning that skirted the courtyard. Even the thought of the rain drew her closer to the fire, wrapping her cloak tighter about herself.

"It is going to rain," He says before she can answer, nostrils flaring into the wind. "Most likely it will storm for most of the night. You should take shelter here but you must not linger for too long. By the morning you should set a course for the next village and not look back."

Her companion is suddenly nervous; This confuses her a little – she had thought him an amiable enough accomplice in this place and had considered asking to remain here in his company until an alternative path either present itself, or necessity drive her away.

Little did she know she would have opportunity for neither.

"Well I was rather hoping to stay a little longer…" She begins but, sure as Lumier's assertion, she is cut off by the boom of distant thunder. Rain drops begin to fall with audible splats against the stone, strange shadows cast against the stonework in the staccato flash of lightning that follows.

"He has slept for this long… Why now does he awaken?!" Panic gripped Lumiere's voice. It contained a tremor within it that spoke of a fear immeasurable in words. A fear she could not comprehend; A fear she should never hope to.

"He? The person you spoke of before?"

"Someone… aye. Someone he once was… but a man he is no more."

"-I don't understand!"

An inhuman roar set, the hairs on the nape of her neck standing on end. She gripped at the hilt of her silver knife with a trembling hand, mind reeling.

What in Gaia was that?

"You should never have come here… You must leave." His hands are numbingly cold as he takes a hold of her wrist and tugging her out of their shelter and into the pouring rain.

"I have nowhere else to go! Lumiere, please—"

"No, this is bigger than anything you can imagine, I beg you to run before it is too late—"

He is trying with all his will to lead her along what once was a connecting corridor between great halls. It will lead them back out into the wild, into the howling winds and lashing rain; into the night and the unknown. Safety.

The winds tear through the gaping windows, carrying with it the cold hand rain. Within moments the adeptness of her cloak is tested, soon soaking through to her clothes.

In spite of her terror, her urge to flee, she wants to know – what slumbered here? What is Lumiere so afraid of?

The still mostly intact roof of the entrance hall swallowed them, a refuge from the rain, her panting breath louder than humanely possible in this echoing space. A great flash of lightning illuminated the room, and she stared around in terrified wonder. The great stone walls stretched overhead, arching taller even than the trees in the forests, coming to a point above her head. There were magnificent paintings now faded and discoloured with age; the tatters of red velvet curtains flapped at each arched window alcove; The marbled floor glittered with fragments of shattered chandeliers, rusting in craters where they had fallen.

Had all of this been here, the night she had slain the Stag? The white form of the creature still lay at the foot of the still pool of water; the pool had swollen with the rainfall, and was rising to claim it.

She halted at the foot of the grand staircase, threadbare ancient carpeting still clinging to them and stared back towards the door through which she had come. It was an imposing doorway that appeared to lead to nothing but darkness. Still, she was fixated upon it. The shadows cloistered someone—_something_—that moved with a heavy, deliberate gait, and who growled low and menacing.

"_Who dares to trespass here_…" the great booming voice seems to come from everywhere, the rolling thunder paling in comparison to its timbre.

She trembled so much that the silver dagger fell from her shaking hand, landing in the blood-filled pool. "My name is Tifa… I… I only sought the heart of this stag…" Her eyes probed the gloom for the voice, though still she could not locate he who spoke.

"_The heart of a stag has magical powers, granted only to he who has slain it_," He boomed, and for a moment she entertained he was behind her. Whirling around to face the way she had come, she turned in time to see the great wooden door to the entranceway- her only escape - slam shut of its own accord. "_You spilled its blood in my home. The blood feeds this sleeping stone and calls to me. It awakened me from a nightmare."_

"I am sorry…" she whimpered, drawing her sodden cloak tightly around her body. "I never meant to disturb you—"

The voice was behind her now, and she spun to face the corpse of the stag. Beside it towered a creature as dark as the stag was white, terrible, with leathery black wings, towering over six feet tall… her knees gave way an she fell to the ground, forehead pressed to the marble.

Suddenly the creature seized her by the wrists and dragged her to her feet, ignoring her whimpers of pain. In a flash of lightning, standing so close in his vice-like grip, she could see him in all his terrible detail. Fangs, black, fathomless eyes, pointed ears and horns… long black claws and a purple hide…

"What are you?" She gasped, tears blurring him from her vision.

He let her drop to the floor, stepping over her trembling form and kneeling beside the preserved stag carcass. It should have begun to rot by now, she wonders, horrified by the forces at work in this place.

In one motion the monster drove his clawed hand into the ribcage of the stag, pulling from within in the creature's entrails with ease. He tossed them to the marble floor before her.

"_I am a walking nightmare; I am the root that trips, the knife that slides between the ribs, the storm that drowns a city. I am the darkness, I am death, I am hate. I am Chaos."_

The monster made a terrible sound—a blood curdling laugh, before with fangs and claws he began to devour the stag's cold dead flesh, gorging himself, drinking the congealed blood with vigour. Only when he was sated, did he turn to her again.

"_Tell me… what was it you wished for, girl_?" Water droplets rolled along the contours of powerful muscles that shifted and flexed beneath his thick and terrible hide, where finally they coalesced with blood, dripping from long black claws that completed his magnificent and powerful claws.

"I wished… I wished for an escape from my old life. I asked for a new path. A path that lead me here," At this she breaks into sobs. Why did she not listen to Lumiere, while she had the chance to run? Why was she not trying to run now? Was this the type of adventure she had been hoping for, at the end of the path?

The creature seemed to take her words into consideration, ceasing in its prowling to look down at her sobbing at its feet. "_Lumiere. She is my prisoner now. See to it that she is placed in a cell_."

"A prisoner?" She sniffs, raising her head to try and find Lumiere in the room. He is standing at the top of the stairway, shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Yes, master." Lumiere takes slow, deliberate steps towards her, and she struggled to stand, to battle him if she must for her freedom.

"Lumiere- please, you can't do this!" She exclaimed, readying her knife. He only shakes his head, disarming her in a single movement by gripping her wrist tightly and twisting.

"I am sorry, Tifa, truly I am. But the magic you have awakened is strong."

The last thing she remembers is how his tears gleamed beautifully in the lightning strike. Then everything is black.

-0-

**A quick thanks to Loonloon and Euphoria for faithfully reviewing—YOU are keeping me going.**

**I wasn't entirely happy with this chapter; it's a bridge chapter, then one's I enjoy writing the least. I didn't quite know how to get her to the castle in an original way, but she is there now and hopefully I can explain more in the next one!**


	6. Skinchanger

**6. Skinchanger**

The dust motes drifted lazily in sunbeams, bursting through the holes in the roof. Her hands waved gently in their warmth, held aloft before her face, savouring the silence and safety that day break seemed to carry with it.

She had slept in this makeshift cell for a night or two beneath piles of furs. To mask her scent, he said. In case he comes looking, he said.

Lumiere was taking no chances. He had locked her in here, behind bars as thick as her arms, to keep her safe from Chaos. At least he seemed to possess _some_ free will. She huffed in malcontent, the sharp exhale of breath sending the dust motes flurrying in swirling motions, bumping into one another before they lost energy and became lethargic once more.

Order was restored to the chaos.

She drifted in and out of half-sleep, listening to the world shift around her. The birds sang as though not two nights hence, a creature beyond her wildest imaginings had suddenly burst into existence. The sun continued to shine and carry out its charted journey across the skies. No- that wasn't correct. The Earth was the only thing moving. Only the Earth sought to interfere, with her rains and her seasons. The sun remained steady and constant; a steadfast reference point for travellers, Mortals and monsters alike.

-0-

It was as though the place drank in the rains and grew like a cancer. Each time he looked a new part had re-formed, exactly as it had been before.

The white stag had been a key into a world that had been locked away for centuries; the door had been left wide open and she had entered. It was not her fault, Lumiere kept repeating. The phrase seemed to calm her in her fitful, nightmare-riddled slumber.

He didn't understand it then, nor did he understand it now, though something was happening that he hadn't planned or anticipated. Had he only delayed the investable?

A thousand years ago, he had begged the enchantress for relief. The magic, she said, was too powerful for her to alter; too many of the household had been claimed by the insatiable hungers and urges of the beast, his soul had been transmuted into something beyond comprehension. The only way to protect the outside world was to send the place into sub-realm of this reality. No person would be able to perceive this place any longer even if they tripped over the threshold.

It would fall into decline, and eventually fade into nothing.

It had been the right thing to do. They were all dying, and all he could do was watch in horror. In the rare moments that the man returned to form, it were as though he retreated back from the hell he had created. He had been proud and selfish once, a social creature with an appetite for flattery, gluttony and lust. Now… it were as though his sense of self had corroded beyond repair, perhaps irreversibly damaged by the intrusion of the other being within his body.

He succumbed to the call of the monster, rather than face the awful reality that he had created.

And so Lumiere saw no other option. The castle was plunged into slumber, the remaining souls within the place becoming one with it. His flesh turned to stone, should he wish it to. He alone prowled this place as the centuries wore it down into the ground, expecting that he would do so until it was nothing more than dust. Nothing left to find, should anyone happen upon it.

Those white stags… he knew their magic, and he was afraid of what it could do. He recalled the magnificence of that _particular_ creature, how its final cry had echoed in the hall and his master had smiled, cutting out the heart with glee. _This_, he said, holding aloft the still throbbing organ, _would be his key to eternal life and power. _

It had taken a further heart to seal this place.

…only one more to break it.

…One that he had missed.

He hunted them from within the confines of the magical field should they stray too near, though he never again cut out a heart to make a wish.

-0-

There is an odd peace to be found in the gardens, she notes, though goosebumps rise on her arms as the clouds clear to reveal a near-perfect full moon. Tomorrow it would be truly full. The air feels oddly still, no breeze disturbing the trees and the flowers. The world around her is in stasis, not a living thing in sight.

Her feet are bare, though the grass is soft underfoot.

Her unhindered wanderings in the grounds take her to a clearing in the midst of a dense copse of trees. The moonlight is almost blinding here, glittering from the surface of a mirror-like pool. Here and there, chunks of stone worn smooth by the weather lay in her path; some large enough to step over, others she had to climb over or duck beneath to reach the enticing water of the pool.

Perhaps there had been an outbuilding here of some sorts a long time ago. A brief study of the trees told her perhaps hundreds years had passed since some event had laid the building to waste.

"It is beautiful here, isn't it?" Lumiere is stood sentinel besides a rain-swollen pool. She gasps at seeing him in the moonlight – he is shirtless, his flesh made of a stone as pure as alabaster.

"Lumiere, you're… You're…"

"I am made of stone, yes. It is part of the magic spell I placed upon this place; a side-effect if you will. Those of us who are left needed all the protection we could get."

They had come to an agreement that she could be free of her cell. He had steadfastly reassured her that she would be safe, at least for this night. She had to trust him. Lumiere – her only friend in this strange and alien place.

"What about me? Am I part of that magic now?"

"I don't know." He approached to stand beside her in her contemplation of the pool, admiring the perfect sphere of the moon in its surface. "All I do know, is that when the moon is at its fullest, the magic gets a little… confused. I can change my skin at will-" He demonstrated this, much to her delight, though her joy did not seem to cheer him.

"It also means that our master… the magic that takes a hold of him… it releases him. He takes on the form of the man I used to serve." His jaw is set, smooth stone features expressionless.

"I sense that you are… angry with him."

"Furious, yes. But he is my master. We were friends once, a long time ago. I lived to serve him. We all did. And THIS is how he repaid us."

"Why can't I go to him? I should see him for myself-"

"No!" Lumiere turned to her, his form shifting back to flesh. His eyes are wild, weathered features alight with emotion. "Please, you must not. You must not put yourself in harm's way. Promise me you won't go to him, that you won't go near the West Wing."

The West Wing had already been shown to her by Lumiere that morning; he had expressly forbidden her from venturing near then, as well. She looked into his eyes, so deep blue, and told him what he wanted to hear.

"I promise."

-0-

"When I was a little girl I used to wish that the fairy tales were real." She told him, gathering armfuls of flowers. He laughed, taking the knife from its resting place between his teeth and continuing to carve away at the sticks lying at his feet.

They were tending a section of the gardens, which had grown wildly out of control in the first few days since the spell had lifted from the castle. She had told him that she liked it that way; wild and untamed, though he had reasoned with her. He was always too serious, she had joked, tossing a handful of soil in his direction.

"We need to be able to sustain ourselves here," He told her, practical hands on his hips. "We need to grow vegetables and squashes."

"Not wild flowers, then?" She huffed, gathering as many as she could and grouping them into bunches. Rosa would have loved these, she thought, her heart suddenly aching.

"No, no wildflowers." He had gifted her with a half-smile, before setting about hacking back the apple trees in the orchard. He would use the branches and fashion them into stakes, to use as guides for the vegetables.

It was then that she told him, on her hands and knees and weeding in the fresh soil, that she used to live in story books as a child.

"Did you wish that the monsters were real, too?" He asked, woodchips flying as he worked.

She thought for a moment. "Yes. Without them there would be no heroes; no princesses to be saved, no brave souls to rise and rescue them. Without the hardships you cannot truly reap the rewards."

He paused, sweeping back his blond hair out of his eyes. "So who is it that will rescue you?"

Her hands stalled in the work, a small weed pinched between her mud-encrusted fingers. "I'm not a princess," She mumbled, tossing the weed aside. "I'm nobody."

"Tifa…" He lets his knife fall into his lap, half standing up to approach her.

"You don't have to talk to me like that. I'm fine- really. I just… I wished for adventure. For a magical journey into the unknown. I suppose I should have been more specific!" She started to laugh, though Lumiere didn't miss the bitter note within it.

"I have some good news for you, I hope." He said, rising to his feet and offering her his hand to assist her. She didn't take it, wiping her hands on the rough apron she wore. His cool fingers closed into a fist before he dropped it to his side. "Some of us were hiding rather well – Yvette, one of the maids who served as hand-maiden to my master's mother, I found in the wine cellar. She had become trapped underneath the rotten barrels, though as she is immortal like myself, it was just a matter of cutting her loose."

"Yvette… A woman to keep me company I assume is your thinking."

"Yes. You must tire of my company. And if you don't already, you will eventually."

"Lumiere…"

"She is waiting for you there, to help you prepare your room to your liking." He surveyed the skies – the weather would be fine, and the night of the full moon clear.

"Lumiere – I… I'm sorry, for… for everything."

His gaze is drawn to her, staring down at her feet and fumbling with her apron. She is so young, as so beautiful… so raw and wild, she couldn't possibly know it herself…

He crouched to gather up one of the bunches of wildflowers she had set aside; wild dill, day lillies and daisies, lilacs and queen ann's lace… He placed the flowers in her dirtied hands, covering them with his own.

"What happens, happens for a purpose." He sighed, enjoying the warmth of her skin. "Sin is punished with suffering, and the just and good are rewarded, if not in this world, then in the next. The gods have a plan for you, Tifa. It is my pleasure to be party to that plan."

She smiles, rosy mouth and dimpled cheeks, wild auburn hair gleaming copper in the sun and eyes the colour of firelight. Then she stands on tip toe to kiss his cheek.

"Thank you, Lumiere."

She half skips away to meet Yvette, wild flowers clutched loosely in her hand, leaving him reeling by the vegetable patch.

-0-

The room is in ruin around him. No surprise there.

He was very good at breaking things.

Once sturdy armoires lay in splinters; Glass, crystal and mirror fragments littered the cracked stone work, gleaming beautifully in the moonlight; Fabric hung in tatters at the windows, fluttering like the flags of fallen armies on a battlefield.

Amongst all of this, lay the most broken thing of them all. He'd smashed the mirrors all those years ago because he had grown tired of seeing himself; seeing what he had become.

He lay in a shaft of moonlight, becoming one with its pale luminance, listening to the voices outside; keen hearing was one of his many 'gifts'. A young woman was laughing at something Lumiere said. He didn't recognise her voice immediately, though through the murky fog within his mind, he recalled something…

_Blood and viscera, thunder and lightning, fragile bones, sinew and flesh in his clawed hands…_

She, whoever she was, had encountered his other self. Lumiere would do well to keep her safe here, now.

His teas were cold.

**Hopefully this is developing in the right direction now! Loonloon, thank you for your kind words. I had to go back and correct a small inconsistency I found when re-reading- Tifa dragged the stag outside, but then it was inside again when Chaos disembowelled it! I had to tweak it so that it remained in the hall. Dur!**


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